Fran asked "Anyone have suggestions for art games for downtime in class?"

I made up "Art hang man." We use a painting palette drawn on the chalk
board where we color in each color rather than drawing a hung dead person.
I keep cards we've done (careers in art, principles and elements, terms in
pottery, etc.) in my desk so we don't have to look up words and I can pull
them out for a quick closure. Kids are familiar with the rules from playing
it the regular way: think of an art term (say complementary) and write that
one blank for every letter on the board. 13. We go around to each group to
guess a letter first without giving hints. They can guess at any time.
Then, the first hint might be "opposite on the wheel." Each time they get
it wrong we fill in one color on the palette.

Another game I learned in a workshop was to get kids into large groups of
6-8 or so. Give them a topic to list as many things as they can think of
(women artists, Renaissance artists, states, kinds of dogs, whatever). Each
group quietly brainstorms with their group and writes these answers down in
maybe 3-4 minutes. If you hear an answer from another group you can write
that down. Then, we take turns sharing each answer. If you say an answer
that's already been said you lose 10 points and you get 5 points for every
answer that hasn't been said. It works and they are really quiet.

I've seen some really neat art games in the catalogs and I want to buy one
each year to start a collection. I also like Sandra's idea (from awhile
back) to have kids make up their own board games. I might do that as their
research project this year. Please post your ideas to the group because I
could really use some more ideas!